Intentions
by Sharadethia
Summary: Lestrade receives a call from Sherlock asking for his help. One shot with Sherstrade undertones.


_Intentions-_

The ceiling spun around him as Sherlock clutched to the nearest wall. He would have sworn that the paint in the room had been white, but it was now a swirling blue with purple overtones. Sherlock took a deep breath and attempted a step forward. He fell to his knees, his nose colliding roughly with the floor. There should have been pain. There had been a crunching noise. And yet there was nothing. No pain, no emotions. The dazed man pulled out his phone and scrolled through his contacts with shaking hands. He scrolled passed John and hesitated over his brother's number. He shook his head. There was something running down his face. He wiped it away with the sleeve of his button-up shirt. The stain was red. He was bleeding. Sherlock frowned and scrolled upwards into the L's. He clicked the enter button and struggled to put the phone to his ear.

"Lestrade…" he tried to cough out when he heard the ringing stop. "31 Christopherson Avenue. Second floor." He began gagging on something. His mouth suddenly felt like it was filled with cotton. He licked his lips with his dry tongue. The last thing he heard was another man saying,

"Christ, Sherlock, are you okay?"

* * *

Pounding. Pounding in his head. Sherlock hissed out a breath and curled into the fetal position, putting one hand in his curly hair to try to calm the noise. When he moved, he felt something pull uncomfortably within his arm. He opened his eyes to note that there was an IV running into the veins on his right arm. He recognized the room. The walls were an eggshell, cream colour and the furniture was mismatched and threadbare, obviously a bachelor's house, or perhaps the house of a newly-divorced man trying to get rid of everything that reminded him of his wife.  
In the corner was the greying detective inspector, reading a tattered book. Sherlock let out a moan, more of a way to beg for attention than anything else. Lestrade jumped up and all but ran over to the man on his bed. "What the hell happened?" Lestrade asked, trying to ease Sherlock back into a flattened laying position. "Stop pulling at the pick line," he demanded.

"I went there for a case… Got jumped…" Sherlock panted slightly, trying to adjust to the bright light pouring in from the window across the room. "Sit with me."

"Christ," Lestrade ran a hand through his hair, shaking his head at the younger man in front of him. "Why didn't you bring John?"

"I didn't feel like listening about his newest girlfriend." There was an annoyed undertone to what Sherlock was saying, but he was keeping his emotions hidden well, at least through his facial expressions.

"There weren't any marks of an attack there, Sherlock."

The two shared a moment of silence, staring into each other's eyes. Sherlock's face was unreadable to most people, but Lestrade wasn't most people by any means. He knew that the other man was hiding something. And Sherlock knew that Lestrade knew, so he turned his back to the detective inspector and grabbed at the IV line as if to rip it out. Lestrade grabbed his hand.

"What was it?" he asked.

"Tainted methamphetamines." Sherlock narrowed his eyes into a glare, challenging Lestrade to berate him or give him another long-winded speech about the dangers of drugs.

"Why?"

"Because I was bored."

"I gave you a case yesterday."

"It was an allergy to peanuts- accidental death when she took a sample from a street vendor who happened to have peanuts next to the pretzels."

"There's more that you aren't telling me."  
"I told you everything. It really was a simple case."

"You know that's not what I mean." Lestrade sat down on the bed next to Sherlock, waiting for an explanation. When he did not receive one, he frowned. "You were mad at John." His deduction hit too close to Sherlock, who snarled something incoherent and tried to turn away. "Sherlock, don't do this to yourself…"

The younger man looked up at the detective inspector.

"Why did you bring me here? You could have easily taken me to the hospital. Or back to Baker Street to have John take care of me. And why your bedroom?"

"You're the consulting detective, you tell me." There was a tense pause before Sherlock got onto his knees on the bed and looked Lestrade in the eyes.

"You feel that you have to take care of me, and it's not fatherly or you wouldn't have mentioned John at all. You're worried about my health, and you always have been." Sherlock looked down at the t-shirt he was wearing. "And you've changed my clothes," he almost accused.

"You had blood all over you, Sherlock!"

"You're interested in me."

A pause. Lestrade looked away from Sherlock, almost looking guilty. "Sherlock, drop it."

"No. You brought me here because you wanted to watch me personally. And you hope that I'll repay you for taking care of me… Not by solving cases, I'll do that anyway. No, you want something else in return, something that appeals to a far baser nature than you want to admit."

Lestrade jumped to his feet, blushing red, but not because he was embarrassed. "I'm watching over you because you need someone to! You're like a toddler; you're curious and you love attention. Who else should watch over you? I couldn't take you to your place, because I know you've stashed drugs there. And at a hospital you could steal more. I brought you here because I care about your health, and I don't want…" He shook his head. "I don't want anything from you."

In a rare moment of humanity, Sherlock put a hand on Lestrade's arm as he began to move away from the bed. The younger man said nothing; speaking was too low a form of communication. He was apologizing in his own way.

"Look, Sherlock, just get some sleep, okay?" he asked, turning around slowly, as though it pained him. He kissed Sherlock's forehead softly before walking out of the room as quickly as he could. As the door to Lestrade's bedroom shut, Sherlock let out a small sigh, trying to suppress the emotions roiling within himself.

"I'm sorry," he muttered to Lestrade, who would never hear him.


End file.
